LETTER: 'Half-Truths' Spread About Towson Y

I would like to respond to the fairly misleading and clearly fantastical regarding the plans for the new  I won't waste your readers' time by recounting all of the half-truths and fabrications, but rather I'd like to be sure that your readers have the facts.

We are absolutely moving forward with our plans to build a new Y in Towson.  That was recently communicated to our members. The development schedule is not "uncertain." While Mr. Amos seems to have the notion that new Ys can be built without a funding strategy, I can tell you that we have been working very hard on the difficult but necessary task of fundraising as well as securing bank financing to complete the $12 million project. Both of those tasks have been incredibly difficult during the most challenging recession since the depression of the 1930s, but we have worked hard.

Bolstered by terrific volunteers, donors and a debt financing mechanism now in place, we are ready to go. Mr. Amos seems to enjoy criticizing the Y, but he has never offered to help us raise money or move this project forward. A new Y is not built by those who find fault or complain from the sidelines—it is built when enough good people in a community do the hard work required to make it happen.

Mr. Amos seems enamored of a plan for a new Towson Y developed back in 1995. I'm sure it was a great plan, but that was 16 years ago and that plan never had a financing strategy attached to it. All of the current buildings on the site are now 16 years older, and the form and functions of family center Ys (we are not a health club, as Mr. Amos refers to us) have evolved tremendously since that point. The almost 50,000-square-foot building we will be constructing is being designed with the benefit of all that we have learned over that period of time. I'm sorry, Mr. Amos, but times change, and so has the plan.

When we are finished with construction and all of the site work, the property will contain significantly more green space than it does today, providing more outdoor play and recreation for our members, program participants and the community. We are not building condos or anything of the sort on the property (Mr. Amos seems to enjoy throwing mud on the wall to see if it sticks).

Most notably, the site will also contain a new, LEED-certified, state-of-the-art family center that will be the best designed Y in the State of Maryland (not a "metal shed," as Mr. Amos derisively refers to our new building). Of that, I am certain.

We looked at incorporating the existing structures, but that is not feasible. The Kelso building contains small, narrow floor plates, and is in very poor condition. The cost of renovating and expanding it into a new, modern Y would have dramatically increased the cost of the project. I would also point out that, contrary to Mr. Amos' observation, the Kelso building is much more architecturally "unrelated" to the homes that surround it than our new Y will be.

Honest people can disagree, but I can tell you that we have received almost universal support for the plans we have set forward. We are continuing to raise money to support this project. Every dollar we raise will reduce the amount of debt we will have on the building, which will increase our ability to provide more programming to the widest cross-section of the community. When it is complete, the entire community will benefit in so many ways.

We invite the good people of Towson to support this project and not to be deterred by the negative and counter-productive perspective of one person who happens to write a blog.  

All the best, 

John K. Hoey
President & CEO 
Y of Central Maryland